[Another interesting post on jewelry in the TaNa”CH, by a friend and faithful blog reader from Israel. CS]

A quick look at the Hebrew word for ring, Taba’at, reveals some interesting – even inspiring – connections with the rest of creation. The root of Taba’at is three letters – Tet, Bet, and Ayin. There are three other words in Hebrew that share the same root. One is Litbo’ah – to sink. A second is Matbe’ah – coin. A third is Teva – nature, creation itself. They have the same root – the question arises therefore – what do a ring, sinking, a coin, and nature all have in common??

To figure this out, we need to decide which word is primary. We can pick the most general encompassing term, Teva, nature itself. Teva, in the Torah’s eyes, is Hashem‘s imprint on the world, it is the effect of the Omnipotent on the planet, His creation. It is doubly interesting to note that the word the Boreh Olam – Creator - uses to describe creation in Genesis (1:3, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:25, etc) Teva, is Tov – good – two common letters of Tet and Bet, while Tiv, in modern as well as Rabbinic Hebrew, means character, or the psychological “nature” of a person.

The Tet and the Bet, together then, signify some essential sort of nature or imprint of something onto something else. “Teva – Nature” is the imprint of the Almighty on the world. What does this have to do with sinking? Sinking is quite literally the imprint of something going down into/onto something else. A boat sinking into the sea is being enveloped in it, it is making its imprint (however temporary) on the sea. If you sink into cement, your imprint stays there.

A matbe’ah – coin – is made by imprinting, sinking some pattern into a piece of metal. And finally… Taba’at. Taba’at - ring, is only translated as such because that’s what we see when we picture that kind of jewelry on someone’s finger. But the actual word, Taba’at, at least insofar as jewelry is concerned, should be translated as “imprinter”. Why?

There are several places in TaNa”CH, in the Bible, where Taba’ot are used. When they refer to jewelry, the word is always used to signify a signet ring – a ring with an imprint, used to sign documents by Kings. It wasn’t something he just wore on his finger. It was the royal seal – the symbol of his power – that the king would sink into the wax seal on official state documents.

But in the end, it all comes back to Teva, to nature. We can only hope to imitate Hashem’s imprint on the world by making our imprint on the world, our Taba’at, as Godly, as Goodly, as Tov, as possible.

[An interesting post outlining how food and jewelry interact in the Torah, by a friend and faithful blog reader from Israel. CS]

This week’s Torah portion – Vayeshev – kicks off one of the most exciting stories in the TaNa”CH, the story of Joseph. What many don’t know is that much of it revolves around food and jewelry. The food: Joseph’s first dream, 11 sheaves of wheat bowing to Joseph’s proud bundle. Everything goes south from there. The jewelry: Pharaoh takes off his ring and gives it to Joseph. Everything goes up from there.

But then another food wave comes and brings us down again. The Israelites, living in Goshen in Egypt, are exempt from paying the food tax instituted by Pharaoh at the end of Genesis. They are, after all, Joseph’s family. (Uh oh…) The next Pharaoh avenges this by making the Jews build his grain storage cities by force. Slavery begins.

Jewish history takes another upswing with jewelry, as we literally empty Egypt of every precious metal stone. We are rich beyond our wildest dreams…only to then use it all on a golden calf.

Jewelry takes another turn around when we build the Tabernacle (Mishkan) to Hashem instead, but comes down again at food when complaints stream in about the lack of meat.

The cycle between jewelry and food is indeed an interesting one, with more waves that follow, both up and down, ever repeating. The key is to use them both correctly, in a kosher way and in tune with the Divine purpose for our lives.